Science
Biology
![What Animal Health Can Teach Us](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/6988b843-bb9a-4c5f-9bb1-730a4d574952/53808903483_011fedee0e_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=1903%2C0%2C3704%2C3702&w=290)
Human beings sometimes forget they are animals themselves. The biological and emotional patterns of other mammals—seen in cancer among golden retrievers, high blood pressure in pregnant giraffes, the social behavior of insects, and connections among elephants that safeguard against loneliness—have much to teach us about our own health. The emerging field of zoobiquity, whi...
![Urban Health Challenges and Solutions: The Role of Nature](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/839ea645-e757-425f-89cd-6fc0685cd3b8/53809264886_380b2a3a78_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=605%2C0%2C4000%2C4000&w=290)
Nature does not limit its influence only to rural populations. In cities around the world, dense living conditions, lack of green spaces, substandard housing, and poor sanitation allow rats and insects to proliferate and pollution to degrade health. But if certain urban characteristics help spread disease, others can curb it, including strategically placed trees, adaptable...
![Taking on Autoimmune Diseases—with Worms!](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/dfc94a20-9491-4766-aec0-4bdc74ef6de1/53806714423_d9c12b256c_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=1004%2C0%2C3628%2C3628&w=290)
In less-developed countries, parasitic roundworms can colonize the gut and cause significant intestinal problems. But autoimmune diseases, the devastating package of disorders in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy cells, are rare in those places. By contrast, in the United States, where roundworm infections are no longer part of the ecosystem, as many as 50 mil...
![‘Open to Debate’: Should We Erase Bad Memories? (live taping)](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/fd623bb5-d48e-4c44-80ba-77dce0628c57/53010384226_a79cfdac91_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=1124%2C0%2C3537%2C3537&w=290)
DOORS OPEN AT 6PM. In the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Kate Winslet’s character erases painful memories of her ex-boyfriend. Could this be possible in real life? Neurotechnology, like decoded neurofeedback, offers ways to modify or erase unpleasant memories. Advocates believe it could improve mental well-being and heal emotional trauma. Forgotten memories co...
![New Paths to Treat and Prevent Brain Disease](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/cbed2695-1619-4bad-bc45-ec520fed21a9/230625_brain_disease_015.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=666%2C0%2C2667%2C2667&w=290)
The mysteries of brain health are hidden deep within the ridges and grooves of the cerebral cortex. Join Mount Sinai Health System neuroscientists in this discussion of new techniques, innovative therapies, and lifestyle changes that unlock the brain’s secrets and boost your performance and longevity. Presented by Mount Sinai
![Does the Future of Medicine Lie in Space?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/49f630c0-e55d-4280-83e3-811cd5d81391/52997838775_d845b34459_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=912%2C0%2C3648%2C3648&w=290)
When it comes to biomedical research, Earth’s gravity can be an obstacle, making it harder to program stem cells into viable organs, obscuring the crystalline structure of proteins, and interfering with cellular communication channels. The possibility of using space to advance science is no longer an exercise in imagination as biotech start-ups begin sending experiments in...
![The 27 Senses You Didn't Know About](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/21399158-7819-4a80-a341-86b9673749d0/52997633814_02de40cf08_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=912%2C0%2C3648%2C3648&w=290)
Vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell are the five human senses most of us are fortunate enough to know intimately. We like to say that intuition is our sixth sense, but Emma Young, an award-winning journalist who writes extensively about science and health, delves into research that has uncovered many others. In Super Senses: The Science of Your 32 Senses and How to Us...
![Life in Five Senses](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/f4c26073-472d-470b-8856-f0ba3f03b53a/52995095736_e4e99a2e19_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=912%2C0%2C3648%2C3648&w=290)
It is easy to take for granted the remarkable human ability to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. Yet engaging fully with these remarkable tools of perception deepens our understanding of the world and paves the way to more mindful living. In her new book, Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World, author Gretchen Rubin draws o...
![Smell: The Cinderella Sense](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/424a6805-2648-44be-9ccb-88d466bce27e/52995002406_86a19e14f7_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=912%2C0%2C3648%2C3648&w=290)
Aromas can trigger memories more forcefully than any other sense. The ability to smell allows us to enjoy nature’s riches, protects us from food gone bad, warns of gas leaks, and provides the perfume of intimacy. It is also the primary communication tool that animals use in the wild. Yet the superpower of smell has historically been under appreciated, the sense people gene...
![Taming Fire](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/eb8e432f-05b5-40f5-b1ca-0114ddefbd79/52184887621_818c93f823_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=632%2C0%2C3302%2C3302&w=290)
As the planet warms, wildfires will proliferate in forests, grasslands, and even urban areas — threatening flora, fauna, and finances around the globe. The good news is that we aren’t helpless, even in the face of all-consuming conflagrations. Leading fire scientists share the best strategies we have for managing — and ultimately taming — the flames.
![Francis Collins: Moving American Science Forward](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/9f0ad605-fb21-4ed1-adbb-572f34c054f8/52172157484_46ef4ebe11_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=1376%2C0%2C5504%2C5504&w=290)
The recent leaps of science—sequencing the human genome, advancing the world-changing technology of CRISPR, deepening knowledge of the brain—owe much to Francis Collins’s brilliant mind and steady hand. Who better, then, to talk about what transformative discoveries come next? Genomics, immunotherapy, precision medicine, new uses for mRNA technology, and other interdiscipl...
![Microbes, Diet, and Immunity Dancing Together](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/74eeadc3-fa0f-41f7-b617-214ec2711a3a/52168881965_fb6e0c3317_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=916%2C0%2C3719%2C3719&w=290)
Knowledge about the human microbiome, those trillions of bacteria, viruses, and other microbes that inhabit our bodies, is revolutionizing medicine just as mapping the human genome continues to do. Indeed, what we are learning could take us even further because the microbiome can be altered by diet, exercise, and stress control. Computational biology, DNA sequencing, and o...
![After COVID: Preventing the Next Pandemic](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/6907e1b5-483b-4553-9bbf-dced8f933713/52166979624_11ba1ab14b_o1.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=1012%2C0%2C4024%2C4024&w=290)
For decades, public health experts warned of a coming pandemic and developed recommendations to prepare—yet when it arrived, the response was a catastrophic failure. With better surveillance, perhaps we could have slowed the worldwide spread of the virus. Had the threat become less politically charged, a consensus-driven strategy might have slowed it down. Certainly, stron...
![CRISPR and the Age of Biology](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/ef4e3f1c-2289-4d22-af31-f90d87d8a7bd/AdobeStock_183680102.jpeg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=1600%2C0%2C4800%2C4800&w=290)
Jennifer Doudna and her Berkeley lab collaborators are not alone in their quest to understand nature. As scientists with profound curiosity, leaders of labs across the globe have found themselves in an intense race to determine how to manipulate our genetic makeup, designing new technologies that can alter the course of disease or even design a human child. But with the de...
As the COVID-19 virus began to burn across the globe last year, virologist Nathan Wolfe had been studying how viruses cross over from wild animals to humans. He was also among the scientists and public health experts sadly prescient about something that is now abundantly clear: The world is woefully unprepared to prevent the spread of novel viral threats. In this conversat...
![In Search of Life](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/d27744f9-7529-4f5c-819d-bb579cfe52db/AdobeStock_103628799.jpeg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=800%2C0%2C3400%2C3400&w=290)
What is life? Where do its boundaries begin, and where do they end? These are some of the simple yet daunting questions science writer Carl Zimmer explores in his new book, Life’s Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive. From the coronavirus to consciousness, Zimmer seeks to demonstrate that biology, for all its advances, has yet to achieve its greatest possible tri...
![Breaking the Code: Good for the Human Race?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/null0bf29eae-fe0a-4b27-998c-657ba7fd8c73/speakers-july11.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=416%2C0%2C1718%2C1718&w=290)
Thanks to the genius of biochemists such as Jennifer Doudna, who’s credited with the co-discovery of CRISPR, our biggest scientific advances in the near future may easily come by way of the genome-editing technology. CRISPR enables scientists to change or remove genes quickly, with a precision only dreamed of just a few years ago. But just how far are we willing to go to e...
![The Art and Science of Remembering Everything](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/null56e7fb23-aa73-4eca-a441-124650bb30f1/48138903943_9a5b86d0e2_o.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=666%2C0%2C2667%2C2667&w=290)
While researching an article on the US Memory Championships, writer Joshua Foer was equally dubious and intrigued by one contestant’s claim that even an average memory, if used properly, could win the contest. After a year of memory training, under the tutelage of the world’s top memory athletes, he won the competition. Foer uses a live demonstration to show that there’s m...
![The Odds of Injury: Genetic Testing and Sports](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/null796ce658-fa62-493f-9fe3-a473c9062d88/odds_injury_aif19.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=560%2C0%2C1439%2C1439&w=290)
Excelling as an elite athlete isn’t just about performance — it’s also about not getting hurt. In this session, two Stanford researchers discuss how DNA data can help athletes predict propensity for injury. From genetic tests of 100 NFL linemen and collegiate cross-country runners, the researchers are using DNA sequencing, algorithms, population data sets, and evidence of...
![Is 40 the New 20 for Pro Athletes?](https://aspenideasfestival.imgix.net/nullb0a6dd38-6e50-4555-afb6-0beeb23b15a7/40_new_20_aif19.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&fit=min&fm=jpg&h=290&q=80&rect=560%2C0%2C1440%2C1440&w=290)
Williams, Jordan, James, Brady. They’re among a growing class of the superstar athletes delivering career-best performances well past what's been considered peak age for their sports. As this phenomenon becomes more common, it begs the questions how and why now? How are experience and maturity winning out over inevitable, natural physical decline? Athletes in the 30s and 4...